A Daughter of the Snows eBook

On Split-up Island all were ready for the break-up.
Waterways have ever been first highways, and the
Yukon was the sole highway in all the land.
So those bound up-river pitched their poling-boats
and shod their poles with iron, and those bound down
caulked their scows and barges and shaped spare sweeps
with axe and drawing-knife. Jacob Welse loafed
and joyed in the utter cessation from work, and Frona
joyed with him in that it was good. But Baron
Courbertin was in a fever at the delay. His
hot blood grew riotous after the long hibernation,
and the warm sunshine dazzled him with warmer fancies.

“Oh! Oh! It will never break!
Never!” And he stood gazing at the surly ice
and raining politely phrased anathema upon it.
“It is a conspiracy, poor La Bijou, a conspiracy!”
He caressed La Bijou like it were a horse, for so
he had christened the glistening Peterborough canoe.

Frona and St. Vincent laughed and preached him the
gospel of patience, which he proceeded to tuck away
into the deepest abysses of perdition till interrupted
by Jacob Welse.

“Look, Courbertin! Over there, south of
the bluff. Do you make out anything? Moving?”

“Yes; a dog.”

“It moves too slowly for a dog. Frona,
get the glasses.”

Courbertin and St. Vincent sprang after them, but
the latter knew their abiding-place and returned triumphant.
Jacob Welse put the binoculars to his eyes and gazed
steadily across the river. It was a sheer mile
from the island to the farther bank, and the sunglare
on the ice was a sore task to the vision.

“It is a man.” He passed the glasses
to the Baron and strained absently with his naked
eyes. “And something is up.”

Looking across the void of shimmering white, it was
difficult to discern a dark object of such size when
dimly outlined against an equally dark background
of brush and earth. But Frona could make the
man out with fair distinctness; and as she grew accustomed
to the strain she could distinguish each movement,
and especially so when he came to a wind-thrown pine.
Sue watched painfully. Twice, after tortuous
effort, squirming and twisting, he failed in breasting
the big trunk, and on the third attempt, after infinite
exertion, he cleared it only to topple helplessly
forward and fall on his face in the tangled undergrowth.

“It is a man.” She turned the glasses
over to St. Vincent. “And he is crawling
feebly. He fell just then this side of the log.”

“Does he move?” Jacob Welse asked, and,
on a shake of St. Vincent’s head, brought his
rifle from the tent.

He fired six shots skyward in rapid succession.
“He moves!” The correspondent followed
him closely. “He is crawling to the bank.
Ah! . . . No; one moment . . . Yes!
He lies on the ground and raises his hat, or something,
on a stick. He is waving it.” (Jacob Welse
fired six more shots.) “He waves again.
Now he has dropped it and lies quite still.”